Attorney General William P. Barr – (Barcroft Media / Getty Images)

The Justice Department signaled Saturday night it may intervene against local governments that are cracking down on religious ceremonies during the pandemic, warning that action could come as early as next week.

Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec used her Twitter account on the eve of Easter to announce that Attorney General William Barr was monitoring efforts to stop Easter religious ceremonies.

“During this sacred week for many Americans, AG Barr is monitoring govt regulation of religious services,” Kupec tweeted. “While social distancing policies are appropriate during this emergency, they must be applied evenhandedly & not single out religious orgs. Expect action from DOJ next week!”

The statement comes as numerous municipalities across the country have been reportedly taking actions to stop churchgoers from celebrating Easter together, including in Louisville where the mayor threatened to track license plates and fine anyone who attends a public ceremony.

A federal judge Saturday actually blocked Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer from enforcing his ban on drive-in church services on Easter, calling it unconstitutional.

“An American mayor criminalized the communal celebration of Easter,” U.S. District Judge Justin Walker wrote while issuing a temporary restraining order. “That sentence is one that this Court never expected to see outside the pages of a dystopian novel, or perhaps the pages of The Onion.

”The Mayor’s decision is stunning. And it is, ‘beyond all reason,’ unconstitutional,” the judge added.

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/doj-signals-possible-intervention-pandemic-crackdowns-religious-ceremonies-m

The post DOJ threatens to take action against pandemic crackdowns on religious ceremonies first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

President Trump, now sounding a cautionary note about “civil war,” is obviously at the white-hot center of the impeachment drama, just as he’s been at the center of American political and cultural warfare for four years.

But others in his inner circle are now being pulled, almost by magnetic force, onto the battlefield.

Mike Pompeo is the latest the find himself in the line of fire, in the wake of a Wall Street Journal story and other revelations.

The secretary of state hit back hard yesterday, tweeting that House Democrats are trying to “bully” and “intimidate” the State Department with deposition demands and he “will not tolerate such tactics.”

IS IMPEACHMENT AN ELITIST MOVE THAT SHIFTS POWER FROM THE VOTERS?

The Journal’s lead story said Pompeo was among the officials who listened in on Trump’s now-famous July 25 call with Ukraine’s leader, in which the president asked for help in investigating Joe Biden and his son.

Television has had a field day replaying a Pompeo interview with ABC’s Martha Raddatz, who asked him point-blank, “What do you know about these conversations?”

Pompeo haltingly evaded the question: “So, you just gave me a report about an IC whistle-blower complaint, none of which I’ve seen.” When she followed up with “you say you know nothing about this,” Pompeo said he thought he saw a statement from the Ukrainian foreign minister that there was no pressure from Trump on the call.

So the secretary obviously knew all about the call and studiously tried to avoid saying so on “This Week.”

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William Barr has also been pulled deeper into the drama. The attorney general was already been reported to have been surprised and angry that the president told Volodymyr Zelensky on the call to work with him on further investigation.

Now there’s a new country involved: The New York Times reported yesterday that Trump “pushed the Australian prime minister during a recent telephone call to help Attorney General William P. Barr gather information for a Justice Department inquiry that Mr. Trump hopes will discredit the Mueller investigation, according to two American officials with knowledge of the call.” (An Australian diplomat had discussed Russia and Hillary with since-convicted Trump campaign volunteer George Papadopoulos.) The AG also met with Italian officials last week.

Barr is, therefore, a crucial partner as Trump uses “federal law enforcement powers to aid his political prospects, settle scores with his perceived ‘deep state’ enemies and show that the Mueller investigation had corrupt, partisan origins,” says the Times.

Still, there’s video of Trump saying he wanted Barr to aid in the probe of the origins of the Russia investigation, so this was not a state secret.

The third major player now is Rudy Giuliani, who is taking issue with House subpoenas “signed only by Democrat Chairs.” (That is routine, as it was when Republican House chairmen signed subpoenas during the Benghazi probe.)

Giuliani, of course, has been a near-daily presence on television, defending his role in privately meeting with Ukrainian officials and doggedly trying to shift the spotlight to allegations of wrongdoing by Joe Biden and Hunter Biden.

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Giuliani’s combative interviews prompted the Biden campaign to ask the networks to stop putting him on and allowing him to spew lies. This was a Hail Mary pass that would obviously be swatted down, and an effort to generate some anti-Rudy headlines.

Not only would no network let a campaign dictate its bookings, but numerous anchors have aggressively challenged Giuliani on the air. In fact, some Democrats like Rudy on television because they think his sometimes heated style hurts Trump.

In a separate story, the Journal reports that Barr at times has been critical of Giuliani’s efforts, and that Trump, while appreciating his TV combat role, has occasionally mocked his personal lawyer.

Of course, there are also Democrats who have been given starring roles in the impeachment drama. One is Nancy Pelosi, who was just on “60 Minutes,” and has been saying she’s “sad” and “heartbroken” over impeachment in an attempt to tone down the rhetoric.

Another is Adam Schiff, the House Intel chairman, who made the mistake of exaggerating Trump’s Ukraine call in a hearing during what he now calls mockery. Trump has repeatedly questioned on Twitter why Schiff hasn’t been questioned for fraud and treason. (Treason?)

And, of course, the Bidens. Tucker Carlson’s show obtained a 2014 photo of the then-vice president and his son playing golf in the Hamptons with a board member of the Ukrainian gas giant that employed Hunter Biden. This obviously raises questions about Joe Biden’s contention that he did nothing to help his son in Ukraine and that they never discussed the matter.

Finally, there’s the unknown whistle-blower, who Trump has accused of sparking a “Democratic hoax” and whose lawyer says his life may be in jeopardy.

By setting their sights on two Trump Cabinet members and his lawyer, House Democrats have given themselves more targets. But they also risk muddying the narrative and allowing these Trump confidants to delay the investigation into next year’s campaign.

The post All the president’s men now being dragged into the impeachment drama first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

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The post Mueller found no collusion between Trump and Russia: AG Barr first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

WASHINGTON — For President Trump, it may have been the best day of his tenure so far. The darkest, most ominous cloud hanging over his presidency was all but lifted on Sunday with the release of the special counsel’s conclusions, which undercut the threat of impeachment and provided him with a powerful boost for the final 22 months of his term.

There are still other clouds overhead and no one outside the Justice Department has actually read the report by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, which may yet disclose damning information if made public. But the end of the investigation without findings of collusion with Russia fortified the president for the battles to come, including his campaign for re-election.

While critics will still argue about whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct justice, the president quickly claimed vindication and Republican allies pounced on their Democratic colleagues for what they called an unrelenting partisan campaign against him. Even as his own party’s congressional leaders called on the country to move on, however, the president indicated that he may not be ready to, denouncing the very existence of Mr. Mueller’s investigation as “an illegal take down that failed” and calling for a counter investigation into how it got started.

Emboldened and angry, the president can now proceed with his administration without the distraction of new search warrants and indictments by Mr. Mueller’s team or the worry that the special counsel might charge Mr. Trump’s family members or even uncover a smoking gun that would prove that his campaign collaborated with the Russian government to elect him in 2016. The questions about the Kremlin’s election interference that dogged the president almost everywhere he went may soon fade, even as other investigators continue to look into other allegations.

Mr. Mueller’s team confirmed that Russia did try to tilt the election to Mr. Trump, but its conclusion that he did not conspire with the effort may ease the way for Mr. Trump to reorient American foreign policy toward Moscow and its strongman president, Vladimir V. Putin, without as much concern about domestic consequences. And it may give renewed confidence to Mr. Trump, who has complained that his dealings with world leaders have been hobbled by their uncertainty about whether he would survive the investigation.

The end of Mr. Mueller’s inquiry also left Democrats on the defensive and will force them to decide how vigorously to continue pursuing allegations of misconduct by the president and his allies, including many that were unexamined by the special counsel, whose mandate was limited to Russia’s interference in the election and any possible obstruction of justice resulting from it.

While Mr. Trump claimed that Mr. Mueller’s findings were “a complete and total exoneration,” Mr. Mueller explicitly said they were not. Although he did not establish a conspiracy with Russia, Mr. Mueller made no determination when it came to obstruction of justice. “While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” he wrote, according to the Justice Department summary sent to Congress.

Instead, according to the summary, Mr. Mueller laid out various actions by Mr. Trump that could be seen as obstruction, letting others decide whether they added up to that. William P. Barr, the attorney general recently appointed by Mr. Trump after drafting a private memo expressing doubt that the president could be accused of obstructing justice for exercising his constitutional power, concluded on Sunday that they did not.

But the House, controlled by Democrats, has the power under the Constitution to decide for itself whether the president’s actions constituted “high crimes and misdemeanors” that justify impeachment, and it could interpret Mr. Mueller’s evidence the other way once it sees it.

The next phase of the story, then, will be the fight by House Democrats to force Mr. Barr to turn over Mr. Mueller’s full report and accompanying evidence, a constitutional battle that could ultimately be resolved in the courts.

Until they read the report for themselves, Democrats are hardly going to agree that the president has been cleared. And they will most likely summon Mr. Mueller to testify, which could provide a public airing of Mr. Trump’s actions that, even if not rising to a crime, may not reflect well on the president.

Still, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has already said that she did not favor impeachment unless the evidence was “so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan,” a standard that seems even less likely to be met now.

Either way, Mr. Mueller’s investigation has taken its toll on this presidency, leading to indictments, convictions or guilty pleas for a half-dozen of Mr. Trump’s associates, including his campaign chairman and national security adviser, and spawning offshoot investigations. In any other administration, that record alone would be enough to seriously damage a president.

Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel. Mr. Trump has denounced Mr. Mueller’s investigation as “an illegal take down that failed.”Credit Tasos Katopodis – Getty Images

Moreover, as Mr. Mueller closes up shop, federal, state and congressional investigators are still examining Mr. Trump’s business, his finances, his inaugural committee and his associates.

The post A Cloud Over Trump’s Presidency Is Lifted first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post Mueller completes the Russia probe report first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Mr. Barr told congressional leaders in a letter late Friday that he may brief them within days on the special counsel’s findings. “I may be in a position to advise you of the special counsel’s principal conclusions as soon as this weekend,” he wrote in a letter to the leadership of the House and Senate Judiciary committees.

It is up to Mr. Barr how much of the report to share with Congress and, by extension, the American public. The House voted unanimously in March on a nonbinding resolution to make public the report’s findings, an indication of the deep support within both parties to air whatever evidence prosecutors uncovered.

Mr. Barr wrote that he “remained committed to as much transparency as possible and I will keep you informed as to the status of my review.” He also said that Justice Department officials never had to check Mr. Mueller because he proposed an inappropriate or unwarranted investigative step — an action that Mr. Barr would have been required to report to Congress under the regulations. His statement suggests that Mr. Mueller’s inquiry proceeded without political interference.

The letter that William P. Barr, the attorney general, sent to Congress.

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